From Cultural Markers to Global Mobile: Using Interaction Design for Composing Mobile Designs in Global Contexts

Globalization raises important questions regarding the study of digital composing practices in international environments. While traditional intercultural communication theories help explain large-scale preferences in relation to technology use, they have limitations related to understanding how cultural groups use emerging technologies to interact. This article advocates interaction design as an approach for better understanding cultural and cognitive factors affecting online composition processes. In essence, an interaction design perspective can help unpack global contexts for mobile design in terms of cognition or learning. As such learning mediates between users, interfaces, and interactive contexts, interaction design can help model designs and users, develop interface prototypes and evaluate interaction that addresses global uses for mobile design. These interaction design approaches can provide students with a better idea of how to develop more effective techniques for composing and addressing mobile design in global settings.